Double-sided touchscreen changes when you fold it

Foldable displays have long been talked about as a convenient way to make larger displays more portable and easier to slip into your pocket. And in 2008 they very nearly even made it to market with PolymerVision's Readius.

But researcher Juergen Steimle, working with developer Mo Khalilbeigi, reckons that perhaps we're missing a trick. Steimle, who worked at the Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany, has developed a range of ways to use the folds in foldable displays to create some quite novel forms of interaction.

Steimle created projection-based display using six overhead infrared cameras and two high-definition digital projectors to track the movement of and project onto a passive white tablet, which the user holds. With a number of different designs, Steimle created a range of tablets containing sets of spring-loaded, reversible hinges so that they could be folded like a book or a pamphlet.

By monitoring the way the tablets are folded, Steimle's system uses
the act of folding and the resulting form of the tablet as a means of
interaction. So hold the tablet flat and it is treated as one display,
like an iPad. Start to bend it in the middle like a book and it will
switch to a two display mode.

Steimle also uses the back of the
tablet. So close the tablet like a book and menu options can be
displayed on the "cover" which when selected will alter the contents
inside the book. And because the cameras are able to detect the angle of
rotation of the hinges it is possible to even use them to adjust things like
the colour, contrast or volume.

Steimle will be presenting the
work later this month at the Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction
Conference in Kingston, Ontario.

No, this would not work. The tracking of the finger is done by an infrared marker on the fingernail. The device in the video is completely passive. Tracking and projection onto it happens all from outside.

Juergen Steimle
on February 6, 2012 4:59 PM

In this project, I have worked with a great team of people at the Telecooperation Lab of TU Darmstadt. I would like to acknowledge the contributions of Mohammadreza Khalilbeigi, Wolfgang Kleine, Roman Lissermann, and Max Muehlhaeuser. Without them, the project would not have reached the point where it is now.